It wasn’t just that, but Sayed and his friends set up a tent in the middle of the neighborhood with the sole purpose of educating people on the importance of the environment citing economic and health reasons. “We also started planting trees between the buildings to make the neighborhood more green,” he adds.

Once Roaya (vision in Arabic) was properly set up, they started launching more campaigns to clean the streets while providing bins around the city. “In 2012, we aimed for more educational campaigns starting with ‘Turtle Day’, where we told people more about turtles, their species, their habitats and what they eat,” Sayed notes.

Later in the year, Roaya held a day on ‘Marine Life’ and what dangers it faces. “We had a day on dolphins and another on sharks, and we also took the children to clean El Qoseir beaches,” he adds.

Roaya went as far as to teach people more about chemical experiments like making plastic from milk and vinegar. “From 2014, we started receiving students from University of Glasgow for six weeks to do research on the environment, marine life and coral reefs,” Sayed says.

Roaya also set up a mangrove reserve while teaching children why it’s important and beneficial to humans. “Throughout the year we collaborate with several organizations on workshops to raise awareness which take place in schools and as far as Ain El Sokhna, an hour from Cairo,” Sayed says.

Roaya also worked with the Goethe Institute in Cairo within its festival on scientific movies and documentaries to simplify the language around science for students while discussing these films.

The NGO targets mainly children between 10-15 years of age but that doesn’t stop it from reaching out to adults.

Roaya focuses mainly on crowd-sourcing as well as certain ways of funding to sustain itself.

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